KORDOFAN

KORDOFAN was an Egyptian Soudanese province on the W. bank of the Nile; an undulating dry country, furnishing crops of millet, and exporting gums, hides, and ivory; was lost in the Mahdist revolt of 1883, but recovered by Lord Kitchener's expedition in 1898; El Obeid, the capital was 230 m. SW. of Khartoum.

This former province of central Sudan was divided in 1994 into three new federal states: North Kurdufan, South Kurdufan, and West Kurdufan, and in August 2005, West Kurdufan State was abolished and its territory divided between North and South Kurdufan States.